Free Burial Ground by Michael McBride Page A

the lagoon, a dark silhouette against the reflection
of the rising sun on the waves. The diminutive man stood, gathered
a fishing net from the heap at the back of the boat, and tossed it
out onto the water. After a moment, the man sat back down and rowed
farther away, the net's buoys bobbing in his wake. Merritt almost
wished he could be like that man, but he did need just a little
more excitement after all. For all intents and purposes, the flying
provided just that. The speed. The heights. The battles against the
volatile tropical elements and the rush of alighting on nothing
more substantial than water. There was a part of him, the same part
that had driven him to enlist in the Army and then pushed him into
special ops, that longed for adventure and danger, but he still
wasn't able to forgive that aspect of his persona. It had sent him
careening through the gates of hell, and it had taken every last
ounce of his strength to claw his way back out.
    He closed his eyes and let the sun warm his
face. It hadn't always been like that. He remembered all of the
hours he had spent dusting crops with his father back home in Iowa,
learning to fly in his old man's lap, rocketing so low over the
fields that his props clipped the grain. Like his father before
him, he was never happier than when he was in the sky, where
nothing could touch him and he controlled his own destiny. The
problem was that that life was too simple. He could see how it wore
down a man in his father's eyes, like those of a dog tethered in a
yard by the highway, watching all the cars speed past on the way to
destinations it would never know. And it would have killed him just
a little bit every day.
    He heard footsteps on the pier, but paid
them no mind. As far as he was concerned, his job was done. He'd
unloaded every last bag and box from his cargo hold. They could sit
on the end of the dock until the Second Coming for all he cared. It
wasn't his responsibility to play bellboy, or pack mule for that
matter. They could drag their weary asses down here and carry that
stuff for themselves.
    "Mr. Merritt," a voice said from behind
him.
    Merritt shook his head and enjoyed the
gentle roll of the waves a heartbeat longer. He really wasn't in
the mood for this.
    "Look," he said, lifting his feet out of the
lake. He rose, walked down the length of the pontoon, and hauled
himself up onto the weathered planks to face the silver-haired man
who had been sitting behind him on the flight, the one whose eyes
had never left his reflection in the mirror. "I unload the stuff as
a courtesy. Beyond that, you're on your own."
    The man offered an amused smile and extended
his right hand. Merritt simply looked at it for a second before
matching the man's stare and shaking his hand.
    "My name is Leonard Gearhardt." The
handshake lasted a beat too long, and Merritt had to slide his hand
out of the older man's strong grip. "I wanted to thank you for what
you did for my son."
    Merritt should have suspected it. He was
going to have to be much more careful. The lackadaisical life had
dulled his instincts. Now that he knew, he could see the familial
resemblance in the brows and eyes, the set of the broad jaw.
    "I didn't do anything for your son, Mr.
Gearhardt. There was nothing I could do."
    "You made sure that his remains reached the
proper authorities, and flew across the country to hand-deliver his
belongings to the American Consulate." Gearhardt paused. "You could
easily have made what was inside that bag disappear and no one
would have been the wiser."
    "And what kind of person would that make
me?"
    "A very wealthy one, Mr. Merritt. I can only
assume you looked inside the rucksack. How easy would it have been
to just slip out one little thing for yourself?"
    Merritt felt his face flush with anger and
his fingers automatically curled into fists. If there was one thing
he'd learned in life, it was that either a man had honor or he
didn't. It was a choice one had to make. There was no such